Rates of abused and neglected children on the rise in Australia: report

By Freya Petersen, staffUpdated
Fri 25 Oct 2013, 4:59 PM AEDT

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Look back: NSW defends child protection system

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Reports of chronic shortages of child protection workers in New South Wales have focused attention on the plight of abused and neglected children across Australia.

According to figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), rates of substantiated child abuse and neglect have risen across the nation.

An AIHW report released in March, titled Child Protection Australia 2011-12, found the number of children who were the subject of substantiated abuse rose from 31,500 to 37,800.

A notification of child abuse is "substantiated" when an investigation by child protection authorities concludes there is sufficient reason to believe the child has been, is being or is likely to be abused, neglected or otherwise harmed.

The findings reversed a downward trend - a drop in substantiations from 6.5 per 1,000 children in 2007–08 to 6.1 in 2011–12 - with rises in all states and territories except Tasmania and South Australia.

The report's authors cautioned, however, that real increases in abuse and neglect aside, the figures could be influenced by a range of factors including better public awareness and legislative changes.

Very young children were the most likely to be the subject of abuse and neglect, the report found.

In 2011–12, children aged under one were most likely to be the subject of a substantiation, at 13.2 per 1,000 children.

In contrast, AIHW spokesperson Tim Beard said "older children, aged 15 to 17, were least likely to be the subject of a substantiation, with a rate of 3.2 per 1,000 children in 2011-12".

More kids granted protection orders and placed in care

Separately, the AIHW says rates of children aged zero to 12 on care and protection orders doubled between 2000 and 2011, rising from four to eight per 1,000 children.

The report says the rise reflects the increasing number of families considered unable to adequately care for the children, but may also reflect changing community standards regarding child safety.

Child abuse statistics

Of the 170,000 notifications of suspected abuse or neglect in 2011-12, 46 per cent were further investigated.

About 37,700 children were found to be the victims of abuse or neglect (or around 1 in 135 children aged 0-17 years).

Children aged under 1 year were most likely to be victims of abuse; those aged 15-17 were least likely.

Emotional abuse was most the common abuse type, followed by neglect and physical abuse.

Sexual abuse was more common among girls.

Across Australia, almost 41,000 children were on a care and protection order at 30 June 2012.

Rates of children aged 0-12 on care and protection orders nearly doubled between 2000-2011.

Nationally, just over 39,600 children were in out-of-home care at 30 June 2012, most in foster care.

Indigenous children were: almost 8 times as likely to be the subject of substantiated abuse or neglect.

Source: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

The numbers of children admitted to care and protection orders has increased 3 per cent from 2011 to 2012, from 13,830 to 14,191, the report found.

Almost half (45 per cent) of children admitted to orders were aged under five.

The rate of children in out-of-home care increased from 7.3 per 1,000 children in 2011 to 7.7 in 2012.

The majority of the 39,621 children in out-of-home care were placed for more than a year.

At June 30, 2012, there were nearly 40,000 children in out-of-home care. Most (90 per cent) were on care and protection orders, the report found.

Across Australia, the vast majority (93 per cent) of children in out-of-home care were placed in home-based care such as with foster carers or relatives. More than half of foster carer households had multiple foster children.

Meanwhile, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children continue to be over-represented in the figures, the report found.

In 2011–12, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were almost eight times as likely to be the subject of substantiated child abuse and neglect as non-Indigenous children.

The AIHW says that while most children in Australia grow up in safe family environments, abuse and neglect can cause significant long-term harm.

Adverse effects included poor social and academic skills, a higher likelihood of criminal offending or mental health issues such as eating disorders, substance abuse and depression.

NSW caseworkers slam staffing levels

Staff from the NSW Department of Family and Community Services (DoCS) have told the ABC's 7.30 program that despite as many as nine notifications about a boy's well-being, staff numbers were so short that his case was not allocated for a home visit.

Caseworkers from the Coniston office say the boy's plight was discussed at a number of weekly allocation meetings, which are reserved only for the worst cases, but on each occasion his file was held over for review.

One caseworker said: "The managers and the manager client services could see it was a case that should be allocated and they wanted to allocate it, but there wasn't any staff or capacity to do so."

The boy died on August 3, 2012, from multiple blunt-force injuries to the head and body. Police have charged his 32-year-old mother with his murder.

His death sparked industrial action by the department's Coniston staff, who described his death as "avoidable".

Inexperienced caseworker 'did not believe' paedophile rumours

The issue of shortages in child protection services has been raised at hearings of the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

Jacqualine Henderson, a former caseworker with the now-defunct Hunter Aboriginal Children's Service (HACS), today told the commission that she had no prior experience with children when she went to work for HACS in 1998.

A former Hunter Aboriginal Children's Service caseworker tells the royal commission into child sexual abuse that a child welfare agency was poorly staffed and she was given little training.

Despite this, she was put in charge of up to 12 children at a time.

Ms Henderson told the commission that when her second cousin Steven Larkins, a convicted paedophile, came to HACS to manage it in 2000, there was a rumour he had abused young boys in his previous job with the Scouts.

But she told the hearing she "didn't believe" the rumour.

She said that when Larkins was confronted about the rumour, he became agitated and angry and threatened to sue for defamation.

Larkins, who has been convicted of sexually abusing two boy scouts and of possessing child pornography and falsifying documents, had falsified his Working With Children check.

DoCS also gave him permission to have a 17-year-old-boy, who he was grooming for sex, live with him.

WA child protection staff struggle to keep up

The Community and Public Sector Union in Western Australia said last month that child protection staff were struggling to keep up with a continued increase in cases.

The union said there were 200 more cases in August than at the start of the year.

An extra $30 million had been allocated to the sector in the 2013 budget, but the union said there was no provision for extra staff.

"Our members' number one priority is the children that they seek to protect from harm," she said.

"They're very concerned that by holding too many cases among not enough staff that those children are being put at risk.

"What we'd like to see the Government do is increase the number of staff in the Department of Child Protection with the demand, the sad demand, for child protection services.

"We need in this state to be prioritising protecting vulnerable children from abuse and neglect."

The Minister for Child Protection, Helen Morton, has rubbished the union's claims, saying the budget for the sector has increased from $250 million in 2008 to $590 million this year.

However, she would not be drawn on whether that money could be redirected to allow for the hiring of additional staff.

"Funding for families and children has increased by more than 100 per cent over the last four years," she said. "It is an absolute beat-up for the unions to be carrying on like this."

Fears of 'broken' system in NT

The Northern Territory's peak child welfare body declared in May that the child protection system there was broken.

Lesley Taylor, the founder and Territory manager of the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN), said the system was not designed to manage the sheer number of people who need help in the Territory.

She called for a wider focus on early intervention and support for families.

"What we find is there is endless tinkering to try and make this system [work] that was never designed to work in this way," she said.

She says that to get numbers down to where NAPCAN is able to cope and do its job well, a policing role, there must be more investment in the welfare of families.

Her sentiments were echoed by the head of a national advocacy agency for child protection.

Frank Hytten of the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care warned the Territory Government that things will not improve until authorities engage more with Aboriginal families.

The number of children coming out of home care in the Territory was growing, he said, however he believed that was partly due to the way child neglect was sometimes interpreted by authorities.

"There was a worker, I was told this yesterday, who thought the fact that Aboriginal children weren't wearing shoes in the community was a form of neglect," he said.